William A. Mitchell

My research interests span several areas of ecology, from individual behavior to community interactions and large-scale patterns of biodiversity. In the pursuit of these
interests, I have studied the behavioral and community ecology of birds and mammals in North America and Israel. I often use a quantitative approach, and much of my research is theoretical. My
current research emphasizes understanding the determinants of species richness and spatial predator-prey games.

Ecological Determinants of Species Richness
Patterns of species richness across space and time have long intrigued ecologists. And, while there are many correlates of species richness (e.g. latitude, mean
temperature, etc), there is a dearth of mechanistic theory to explain the patterns and correlations. One of the goals of my research is to provide such testable, mechanistic theory. Toward this
end, I have developed mathematical models to investigate the effects of climate, resource productivity and travel cost on evolutionarily stable strategies and species richness (Mitchell 2000,
Mitchell and Porter 2001, Mitchell et al. in press). My future research plans include, 1) addressing the effects of seasonality 2) compiling data to test competing theories for the ecological
bases of species richness.

Predator-Prey Games
In some prey species individuals move frequently among widely distributed food patches. This movement may be costly in terms of foraging intake, especially if food
patches are non-depleting. In addition, moving prey may be more likely to encounter predators, making movement appear to be a bad strategy, or one made necessary by food depletion. Current
foraging and patch use models do not predict his type of movement.

Recently, I have collaborated with Dr. Steven L. Lima of Indiana State University to model large-scale foraging movements by prey (Mitchell and Lima, 2002). We propose that in these cases the
prey and predator may be involved in a spatial "shell game", in which the predator attempts to learn prey locations, and prey attempt to be unpredictable in space. To understand this shell
game, we developed an object-oriented, individual-based model in which we could vary a number of parameters characterizing the predator-prey interaction on a landscape. Our results show that
the shell game is likely to occur when predators have good spatial memory and a low probability of killing prey on any given encounter.

Currently, I am modeling predator-prey games of movement using the technique of genetic algorithms. The motivation for using genetic algorithms is that they may allow us to find evolutionary
stable strategies of interactions that are too complex to solve by traditional means, such as those involving multiple predators and multiple prey species.